Netflix’s ‘Bloodline’ Creators on ‘Damages’ Comparisons: This One Will ‘Dig Into the Earth That Is Family’

Netflix’s “Bloodline” is a family thriller from brothers Todd and Glenn Kessler, as well as their decades-long close friend and collaborator, Daniel Zelman (collectively known as KZK) — so it’s no surprise that this offering from the people behind “Damages” will be highly personal.

But it is not “Damages,” the Kessler crew wanted reporters to know at Wednesday’s Winter Television Critics Association panel for the new series — except maybe a little bit in its tonality.

“‘Damages’ for us was very much about the professional world, and what our experiences were entering the professional world,” Todd A. Kessler explained. “We wanted to do something that was allowing us to dig into the earth that is family.”

Further distancing their new show from their old one, which starred Glenn Close and began on FX in 2007, “Bloodline” started with a 13-episode series order, so that freed up the creative process for the streaming show, the writers told the Langham Huntington Hotel media. And the binge-watching that Netflix offers allows greater nuance in the writing, Todd told the Pasadena crowd.

Plus, there is the absence of commercials, and the knowledge that every viewer will start with Episode 1 is a huge asset, Glenn Kessler pointed out.

“Netflix is its own universe,” his brother Todd concluded. “Right now, we’re really high on the streaming.”